Don’t Look like a Spammer!

2 minute read

Upland Admin

6 steps to email marketing best practice

We all get spam, and by now we all know how to recognise it. You probably don’t give what goes straight into your junk mail a second thought, but what about when your own email campaigns start heading in the same direction?

Here are 6 email marketing best practice tips:

1. Spam lingo

Avoid:

  1. Multiple exclamation marks!!!!
  2. Excessive graphical tricks
  3. ALL CAPS
  4. Spam trigger words

If you’re not a spammer, don’t make yourself sound like one!

2. Spray and pray approach

Segmented email campaigns get

  1. 15% more clicks
  2. and 14% more opens

Not only will your campaign lack direction with a blitz approach – you could seriously affect your deliverability.

(Source: Mailchimp Global Survey)

3. Failure to keep your data clean and up to date

  1. Data decays at an estimated rate of over 40% per year.
  2. 86% of UK companies regularly educate employees about the risks of spam.

(Source: 2012 survey by GFI)

3 steps to avoiding database decay:

  1. Manage your recipients.
  2. Update old, expired data.
  3. Cleanse invalid or duplicate addresses.

If you don’t do this regularly, it’s likely that the ISPs may assume you’re a spammer due to your high bounce rate, and the number of dead addresses on your lists.

4. Email overload

  • 66% of people would unsubscribe from a mailing list due to receiving too many emails.
  • 37% would respond negatively to future messages from that brand.
  • 27% would stop using the brand’s products or services.

Ensure that all emails are relevant and interesting to each customer.

(Source: Upstream/YouGov, February 2012 (% of UK respondents))

5. Sending to lots of bought in lists

Sending to bought in lists can be damaging to your email deliverability and IP reputation:

  • ‘Honeypots’ are planted email addresses that identify the sender as a spammer.
  • Spam traps are set up when an email address yields a hard bounce because it is old or no longer valid but still receives consistent traffic.

You have no way of knowing how often your purchased email addresses have been emailed or where the addresses originate from – why risk your reputation?

(Source: Hubspot)

6. No ‘unsubscribe’ link

In the UK, an unsubscribe link is required by law. And a clearly navigable unsubscribe link is an effective tool in data list management.

Remember:

  • Avoid spam trigger words
  • Don’t bombard your contacts
  • Manage your data lists
  • Segment your data
  • Don’t send to lots of purchased lists
  • Include an unsubscribe link

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